coming up on r t attorney general eric holder has seen better days the justice department's tracking reporters' e-mails has soured relations with the press now there are calls for eric holder's resignation as a result look at some of his past decisions ahead. has monsanto struck again the federal government wants to know how unapproved genetically modified we've got into an organ field more on details coming your way. just days after president obama's speech on u.s. counterterrorism tactics he launched yet another deadly drone strike inside pakistan so what does this mean for his drone policy moving forward will explode explore that issue in tonight's show.

it's thursday may thirtieth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you are watching our t.v. . u.s. attorney general eric holder is running short on friends these days he certainly hasn't had luck with republicans since the fast and furious mexican gunrunning scandal democrats are also distancing themselves from the attorney general in light of the fact that the d.o.j. was monitoring the media's phone calls and e-mails and that holder not only knew about the d.o.j. meteor monitoring monitoring but that he also signed off on it he also lost the media's refer us support as a result numerous news organizations turned down an off the record meeting with the attorney general today to discuss the justice department's guidelines on governing security leak investigations that involve reporters c.n.n. fox news the associated press the new york times reuters and the huffington post all refused to participate so long as that meeting was off the record and that doesn't bode well for the man that's trying to revamp his reputation with the press

political commentator sam sacks takes a look at the man no one wants to be associated with with regard to the potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material that is not something that . i've ever been involved in heard of or would think would be a lie policy that was eric holder is on may fifteenth it is a week later newsgroup that holder was directly involved in the prosecution of the press personally approving a search warrant against fox news reporter james rosen house republicans are now looking into whether or not holder lied under oath holder is survived previous controversies including being censured by the house of representatives in two thousand and twelve but this time it was fifty years attorney general of the united states he's under more pressure than ever and there are three reasons why you might not be on the job much longer reason one suppression of the press holder's investigation of james rosen may be the most egregious example but it's really just

the latest in a long string of attacks on the press thank you letters department of justice carried out in unprecedented supply. the associated press collecting phone records from twenty offices affecting more than one hundred reporters but eric holder has been most aggressive in going after sources going after whistleblowers department of justice has prosecuted six whistleblowers under the espionage act that's more than during any other presidential administration in history one of those whistleblowers former cia officer john kiriakou who exposed torture talked about the d.o.j. just chilling effect on the press journalists will tell you that their national security sources have just dried up since my prosecution i think that's what the government's point was i think i think this case is much bigger than just john kiriakou it goes to freedom of speech and freedom of the press and i think there's a there's a real war on free speech right now kiriakou is now in jail serving

a thirty month sentence which brings us to the second reason why it might be time for holder to go prosecutorial overreach in january of this year internet activist aaron swartz killed himself as us facing several charges of computer fraud and abuse carrying with them a thirty five year prison sentence parents family blames overly aggressive d.o.j. prosecutors for hounding aaron to death and then there are the current prosecutions of internet hacktivist jeremy hammond and barrett brown both could be facing wildly disproportionate prison sentences for the crimes they've committed. plus the d.o.j. is currently fighting a four year lawsuit by the electronic privacy information center demanding to know if holder's d.o.j. illegally surveilled on wiki leaks supporters and of course there's holder's overzealous prosecution of drug violations conducting roughly two hundred raids and nine medical marijuana states resulting in at least sixty one federal indictments

since two thousand and nine these actions alienate people on the left and the right side of the spectrum leaving holder with very few friends and while the department of justice has been so eager going after activists and whistleblowers and marijuana users and putting them in jail for a very long time they've been less enthusiastic going after real criminals which brings us to reason number three their election of duty. this month protesters camped out in front of the department of justice in washington d.c. demanding to know why eric holder hasn't put one in jail for foreclosure fraud yet also despite growing john kiriakou the guy who blew the whistle on torture in jail holder has refused to charge anyone in the bush administration for committing torture or any other war crime so today holder is in trouble and if he does end up resenting it won't be just because of this latest controversy with james rosen in the press but it will be because of a long history of missteps

a history of siding with the strong over the weak and a history of skewing the rule of law itself in america and washington same sex r.t. to oregon now where a federal probe has been launched to find out how is not a clean modifies train with the hand sprouting up in a local farm genetically modified wheat has never been approved by the agriculture department for use in the u.s. wants asked to monsanto tested versions of its roundup ready we have between one thousand nine hundred eight and two thousand and five but we're tracking this application from the u.s.d.a. as regulatory approval process so imagine the eastern. oregon's farmer's surprise when he discovered that this wave was growing in his farm to discuss this federal program the financial implications the discovery could have on the wheat market i was joined earlier by andy's to fanny and he is the co-founder of sparrow media dot net and he started by explaining why this wheat was never approved well monsanto is

applied on several occasions for various products various crops to be generic meal modified or prepared as roundup ready to run in conjunction with the system of herbicides that they also put out on market now they did not do this with we because canada turned around i believe in two thousand and five and said the european union as well as japan would not allow for imports of. genetically modified organisms and therefore threaten the economic. products that we're now producing to send to those countries and so for that decision alone is why they no longer decided to approve these products for market it's kind of questionable that now you know over seven years later they're appearing in the wild people's farms now and as a result you have spoken a little bit about this the economic impact as a result of this discovery we futures drop point five percent today and japan has stopped imports until the problem is investigated and dealt with so it's hurting our economy it's eroding international trust in our products what does this say

about the a potential impact that monsanto and biotech businesses can house on the country. but it's tremendous and it kind of speaks to the larger hypocrisy in certain lawmaking bodies will favor businesses that they're aligned with or businesses that lobby them over the economic incentive an economic prosperity of our country and so their constituency should be the american people it shouldn't be an individual corporation and see louis missouri like monsanto and so monsanto along with many other organizations have lobbied significantly throughout the years members of congress and also in local states to get legislation that has their interests so there was a spending bill recently this year that introduced a piece of legislation that would not require labeling of genetically modified foods because the imposition would create for monsanto and that is something about fast tracking their products to market it's favoring the business when almost all of americans would like to at least know where their food is coming from where

their food is sourced and especially folks in europe are particularly bothered by the idea of having these g.m.o. products now mixed into the market and that's not to mention the so-called monsanto protection act that made its way into the agriculture appropriations bill now let's watch the conversation just a little bit meanwhile in north carolina. journalist full potter discovered a new proposed legislation that would make it illegal for whistleblowers to expose all corporations including month santow and how they could potentially affect the environment and public health we've talked about agag laws in the past but can you briefly explain for our viewers what an ag gag law is and whether or not this proposed legislation qualifies as one. well potter has worked tirelessly to bring the issue of agag laws to the forefront he's done that through his blog green is the new red dot com i encourage everyone to go there and view multiple stories related to ag gag but essential the ag bills were penned by the american

legislative exchange council they were a model bill that was passed on from state to state and different states have appropriated either all or pieces of these legislations but essentially say that if you blow the whistle on a factory farm that's a brutally abusing animals in the case of some factory farms chickens being abused or down cows being moved with backhoes and other types of heavy machinery if you videotape this if you photograph it if you blow the whistle on these corporations and thus resulting in these corporations being brought up on municipal charges what will happen is that you could be charged underneath these ag gag laws and the penalties vary from state to state because they're state bills but in north carolina in particular the language is so broad that it could say that if you're doing this with any company not just an animal enterprise not just a factory farm but if say monsanto if you blew the whistle on monsanto you could be charged as a felon for reporting on their misconduct so andy yes or no is this one part of an

ag gag law. well because the american legislative exchange council pens what they call model legislation states adopt either all or part of it so the language of the gag bill is inserted into a larger bill imagine as a bundle there's eight different things in the bundle one of the eight things is analogous to all the other states agag legislation so i would go as far as saying that what is going on in north carolina is an gag bill it's bundled with other things it's masked it's veiled but it's a gag bill and the language there is even worse because it's more overbroad and again check out green is the new red dot com in the writing of will potter because he's covering this extensively and we have a very short amount of time left but what is the chance of this bill actually getting through we've seen one after another of these and gag bills be struck down or repealed. it's really hit or miss i think that there's been a tremendous public outcry in part to the work of well and the humane society

united states mercy for animals and compassion over killing they've really brought this issue to the forefront and solicited mainstream support from individuals like carrie underwood when she tweeted out governor hell some that resulted in the bill to be repealed in tennessee but unfortunately it's on the books in iowa and in other states india to indiana is also expensive but it's been struck down we need to make sure that this happens in every single state and it doesn't keep popping back up unfortunately the world with these lobbyists they're going to keep hacking away at it to make sure that they're. because their their clients are going to have to leave it there and they step on me and co-founder of the sparrow media dot net. thanks so much still ahead here on r t the pakistani taliban number two commander was recently killed in a drone strike this just days after president obama's counterterrorism speech where he vowed to stale back that drone program so is he living up to those promises well question more next. the worst year for those things.

white house chief of a. radio guy in fort lauderdale minestrone. i want to watch closely a politician because you never seen anything like this i'm told. i would rather as questions the people in positions of power instead of speak on their behalf and that's why you can find my go larry king now right here on our key

question more. it was the first drone strike the u.s. has conducted since president obama's national security speech now pakistani officials as well as the taliban have confirmed that that drone has hit its mark while the arrest mon is the pakistani taliban number two commander rick mine and six others were killed in that strife he was accused of helping coordinate the two thousand and nine suicide bombing on a u.s. base in afghanistan that killed seven americans as well as hundreds of bombings and shootings that have occurred across pakistan without missing a beat the pakistani taliban announced today that it has chosen a new deputy commander to replace the deputy respond successor is thirty eight year old khan site he was allegedly involved in the two thousand and eleven attack on

a pakistani navy base in karate were eighteen people were killed as well as the two thousand and eleven jailbreak where some four hundred militant inmates had escaped i was trying to earlier by marcy wheeler she's an investigative reporter with mt we'll dot net and i first asked her what could really come out of this drone strike and whether or not the president actually followed his own guidelines. president actually did although only if you look at the fine print in his speech in it he actually said well the afghan theater is exempt from all these rules and will be exempt until we withdraw from afghanistan so what he was if what he was you know whatever rules they have imposed and it's not at all clear what rules they have imposed. don't apply focused on so the cia will still run the pakistani strikes the cia can still do signature strikes in pakistan and can still strike people as they did in a strike to tell about who are technically our enemies pakistan's enemies based on

the logic that we're preventing the pakistani taliban from letting troops rush across the border into afghanistan or hurt our own troops but marcy in that same speech he also said that it would only attack al qaeda and its associated forces and that they would rather detain them and that they would respect state sovereignty so is it true really what you just said that he is abiding by what he said and that just because it's outside of the afghan theater of that kind of negates everything else right i mean you know it is not of fighting by the rules about state sovereignty one of the really interesting things about this strike is that. it's clear the pakistani military i.s.i. their intelligence services would approve of the strike because they've been going after the pakistani taliban for a long time but as mcclatchy reported i think we're really good wrap up on this what it did do is not what i sharif who just was elected in pakistan have been

talking about making peace with the pakistani taliban and sense the strike the pakistani taliban have said no peace talks are off and so when we talk about sovereignty are we just talking about the military in a country that is a stone simply of democracy because that's what it looks like with regards to the strike. and something new and something very interesting to bring up and during this talks of pakistan and possible reconciliation with the pakistani taliban is that right mom was said to be the one that was really trying to push for this reconciliation with the afghani with the pakistani government excuse me but beyond that i want to play a part of president obama's speech from last thursday here is him talking about how these strikes have haunted him for me and those in my chain of command those deaths will haunt us as long as we live just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred throughout conventional fighting in afghanistan and

iraq. but as commander in chief i must weigh these heartbreaking tragedies against the alternatives. to do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties so here we hear the president talking about how tough of a decision every each and every single one of these drone strikes as this most recent one had six other people killed some of them or in the taliban some of them were not and we have seen our doctrine in the number of drone strikes this year what should we make of this is this the obama administration changing its ways or is it just still very early in the year. well i mean i think what obama's just trying to sell us on on drone strikes it's the argument that harold koh has been making which is we're going to strike you know the you know in his speech obama also talked about maybe we should be putting more money into into support but you

know ultimately what the speech was about was trying to sell us on the drone strikes he's already he's already engaged in as the most humane option because we're not going to talk about nonmilitary options and so on that basis it's not clear that much is going to change anytime soon and finally marcin we have a short amount of time left but the president in the speech has said that there will be more transparency when it comes to drone strikes now the white house has not said anything in terms of this drone strike actually having taken place in terms of anime actually being killed so are we seeing that transparency or should we expect it in the future we're not seeing transparency what we're seeing is a list of a very fluid rules with some giant copy outs that you could drive you know twelve drones through and you know the administration still doesn't want i mean they're not being transparent about the pakistani strike they're not being transparent about winning gauge and if they're not being transparent about the rules so i'm not holding my breath for more real transparency well we know this isn't the first

strike that has happened in pakistan this year there are banned thirteen others and it certainly won't be the last marcy wheeler investigative reporter with empty wheel dot net. well if you do the crime you do the time and sometimes that hard time extends beyond the length of your prison stay some states for bad felons from partaking in their civic duties things like voting in elections running for office or jury duty but that may no longer be the case for virginia felons outgoing governor bob mcdonnell says he'll restore the voting rights for nonviolent felons for genya currently has a rule that these felons must wait for a two year period and file a petition directly to the governor to have their voting rights restored under the new plan the governor's office will weigh the felons on a case by case basis to determine if they should vote right when they get out of prison and the timing of this is a bit convenient this decision would enable thousands of these people to vote in the upcoming governor's election earlier today i was joined by my report says she's

the deputy director of democracy program at the brennan center for justice and she began by talking about the importance of this proposed policy change. it's important because we live in a participatory democracy and if we want a robust democracy we need to have all of our citizens be able to have a say in the laws that govern us and currently we have four million americans who are living and working in our communities who cannot vote because of a criminal conviction in their past virginia was one of a number of states that imposed restrictions on people who had gotten out of prison and were living and working in the community making it impossible for them to get the rights to vote back unless the governor specifically decided to individually provide clemency or pardon for that particular person and that is disruptive to the re entry process if we want people to be productive engage citizens we should be

encouraging them to be engaging in pro-social behavior like voting and it is just up to public safety because it doesn't fully give people a stake in our society and doesn't make them engage in the sort of normal behavior is that voting is at the same time there have been a lot of critics that have come out speaking out against this first of all they spoke out about the fact that it's only for a non violent felons and second of all they spoke out about the fact that it does not apply to future governors so in your opinion does this go far enough and i know that it's going to take a constitutional amendment in our state get for janet to actually change its ways but is this a good first step you know we definitely believe that this is a good first step and that virginia has more improvement that it should undertake if we want our democracy to be free fair and accessible we need to make sure that people who are living and working in the community who are eligible americans have

access to be able to cast a ballot that will count law enforcement folks agree people in the criminal justice system agree it is a very important move to make people who have spent time in prison successfully reintegrate by allowing them to vote now in government donald discuss the bill today on m.s.n. bases morning joe here's what he had to say. we're trying to get a constitutional amendment passed this session with republican and democrat board to automatically restore the rights in that failed and so because of that joe i'm using all the power i've got as the chief executive out of the constitution to automatically restore right side and individual basis for. a lot of more people than i will be able to vote you know to republics and hold office and have their gun rights restored in virginia but i do want to bring up the timing of this whole thing i mean as i have mentioned it wouldn't go beyond this governor on less

cuccinelli or is a contender to agree to bring it up so does it have potential to affect the gubernatorial run because i know with that it did have a potential to affect the presidential run if it had actually been applied before the two thousand and twelve election well you've raised a number of interesting points in that one statement so i'll try and break them apart the first is the reason that there needs to be more movement on this or one of the reason there needs to be more movement on this is precisely because it could be changing under another governor's position one of the problems that we saw in florida and iowa was that we had changes of administration in the states and they rolled back some progress that had been made so it is important for there to be a continued effort to try and get a constitutional amendment but in terms of when people can register to vote it's important that we have people participating and registering to vote and if this is a farsighted in a program that they're thinking that this might be

a good time to have incentives such that people will try and get into the system in and be excited about this i think that that is a good thing but what is not being alleged and what's really important to remember is that this governor is a as a prosecutor he comes from this from a background of knowing what it takes to make our community safe and secure and what we need as a democracy and as more people voting more people participating we're going to have to end it there unfortunately we're out of time when the president made a director at the democracy program at the brennan center for justice thank you. just about anything can be mass produced package stamped and sold to eager american customers but the story can turn grim when tragedy is used to turn a quick buck shirts and bumper stickers as well as posters hit the market just hours after the boston marathon bombing and hordes of people quickly scooped up that merchandise it's a way to support the victims of that tragedy yes but who else is profiting from

these calamities the residents lori harmfulness shares her opinion on the matter. charles ramsey the cleveland man who helped free three kidnapped women and a little girl they endured horrible torture and wait and have been chained up for almost a decade ramsey became a national hero after a video of him recounting how he put down his big mac to go and help free the kidnap victims went viral burger restaurants caught wind of ramses viral video

which mentions that he was eating a burger so like many many opportunist before them they decided to use the story to cash in this story which involves three women and a child being held captive and brutalized for a decade of their lives that's the story that inspired not one but more than a dozen restaurants to offer ramsey free burgers for life as a way to get publicity for their businesses one of them was developing a card named after ramsi the restaurant where he works named a burger after him and someone actually created in the online video game called burger which animated ramsey and the kidnapper throwing burgers at each other. get the disgustingness of anyone trying to profit from this story may just do let me remind you that america is with such opportunists it's practically

a national pastime commercializing tragedy it's part of the american ways. right just look at what happened after nine eleven as an example entrepreneurs raced to sell memorabilia that included everything from window decals to stickers to snow globes to t. shirts to baseballs to pay into you name it whatever they could stick the world trade center's twin towers on and sell it they did. and of course how they would does it all the time making movies about every tragedy ever for profit j. lo already gave an interview talking about making a movie about the boston marathon bombing j. lo if that doesn't make you vomit just take a look at these i survived hurricane sandy t. shirts at cafe press. so it should come as no surprise that burger restaurants are trying to turn a profit off a story that involves three women and

a child being brutalized for a decade what was surprising was ramsay's response to all of these businesses trying to gain attention and profit from the story in a written statement he said i want everyone to know that i have nothing to do with this trash. well done sarah and that is why even more of a hero in my eyes tonight let's talk about beth by following me on twitter at the residence. and that's going to do it for now for more on the story as we cover go to youtube dot com slash our to america and for the latest and greatest information coming out from around your world check out our website it's our c dot com slash usa follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez and don't forget to leave me your comments feedback and story suggestions for now have

a great night. the war. in. iraq.